By Popular Demand: “Beware, Peter, The Ides of March…”

Appropriately enough the year was 1984. I was fourteen years old and in tenth grade. In many ways, this year was definitive for me-it was, in fact, one of the worst years of my life. It seemed that no matter what I did, or where I turned some new disaster lurked to engulf me. Without going into too much detail, my parents got divorced, my mother came down with a serious illness and was hospitalized in Atlanta. I was left to my own devices and held it together as best I could. My biggest concerns were making sure my older sister’s coke-head friends didn’t steal too much of my food and money, and finding a way to get to school (I admit I could have taken the bus, but I thought I was too cool for that). Needless to say, such experiences, combined with the natural mental latitudes of adolescence, made me wild and woolly-a kid loosely adopted by the Downtown Athens community like some feral mascot. The more traditional institutions were less accommodating, and as I seemed hell-bent on crashing and burning, most of the folks I knew from church or school just stood back and watched.

Up to that point, the crazed anger I felt at a system that had failed me in a vast manner expressed itself in typical teen-age nihilistic self-destruction. There was no higher calling to the extreme rebellion I felt welling up inside of me with beautiful, elemental fury. Little did I suspect, incident and cause would be laid up at my feet.

It was the Ides of March. I was downtown with some friends, drinking a beer and getting ready to go see a band play. At that time Athens had a local TV station that aired live footage. The TV crew was going around asking folks what they were planning to do on the Ides of March. It just so happened that my English class was reading Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, so of course, the play gave me what I thought were great ideas for a clever answer. The TV crew came to our table and asked my friends and I what our plans were, and I burst out with an exclamation that we should do to Reagan what was done to Caesar…although I must admit, I didn’t express myself too eloquently. Instead, it was just teen-age me saying dumb teen-age things. I was pretty pleased with myself at the time, very sure that no one could top what I said. I don’t really remember the rest of the evening-presumably, I hung out, saw a band play and probably tried to meet college girls.

I forgot about what I said-didn’t think there was too much to ponder on, really. A few weeks passed uneventfully. I played around with theater when I was in High School-the production at the time was Jesus Christ Superstar. One day, practice let out early and my mother showed up (she wasn’t in the hospital yet). Usually she picked me up late, and practice let out early-so this meant she was realy early. And that meant, of course, that I was in trouble. The thing was, I couldn’t for the life of me think of what it could be.

It turned out that, whatever the problem was, there were men at the house who wanted to talk to me-and my mother couldn’t tell me about what. That was particularly chilling-as my mother was my only real advocate. I racked my brains for what it could all be about this time.

Two men waited for me in my own house. One was a fat guy with a broken arm-local law enforcement. The other was a poster child for the SS: gigantic, dressed in a dark suit and tie, square jaw, perfectly combed blond hair and blue eyes. He asked me if I was who I was and then told me to take a seat-again, this was in my own home. It turned out he was FBI and they were investigating me. They had seen the film footage where I made my comical remarks about the Ides of March. Remarks, I would like to reiterate, that were obviously made in jest. This from a local show in a small town on a Friday night on a station that no one (or almost no one, it would seem) watched. I was too shocked to be scared-the situation was surreal, like watching myself in some weird indie movie.

What I said was against the law. What about freedom of speech? Well, apparently, that’s open to interpretation. Technically, because of legislation enacted during the Kennedy administration, I was on the wrong side of the law-again. A lot of people today have lionized Reagan and his era as some sort of Golden Age. It’s their answer to the Kennedy Camelot. Well, let me tell you, it wasn’t that great. The nation was reeling from recession, the Cold War was stepped up so that WWIII and subsequent nuclear Armageddon seemed inevitable. All the environmental concerns I was raised in during my 1970s’s childhood were tossed out the window. Callow materialism gripped the land-the hippies had grown up to sell insurance and bought their kids designer clothes.

Here I was, a fourteen year old boy, trying to hold his own in the world, and the FBI decided I was enough of a threat to national security that I was worth investigating. They said the reason it took them so long to find me (two weeks or so) was because they assumed I was in college. After that, they looked through local High School year books and there I was-positively identified by a school teacher that was trying to date my mother. They knew who I was, where I lived, who my associates were. They took photos of me: my front and my profile. They gave me a hand-writing test. I was on record. Nothing else came pursuant; fortunately, I lived in the US and so a black bag wasn’t put over my head and I wasn’t dragged off into anonymous oblivion for insulting El Presidente.

When they left it took awhile for me to realize no real prosecution was going to take place. A colossal sense of relief fell on me as I felt that for the first time in recent memory, I was given a break. My father called and asked me what I’d done now. Nothing. I’d done nothing. Except open my stupid teen-age mouth and say stupid teen-age things. And to my surprise, Big Brother really was watching.

Years later, the US government talked its citizenry into going to war with the nation of Iraq. They did so with fraudulent evidence and deliberate fabrication of the facts. As a result, thousands died (20% of the casualties were children, by the way) and millions were displaced. Illicit spying on Americans by their own government was engaged-a person I know even said “as long as you’re not doing anything, what do you care?” Under the excuse of war, kidnapping and torture were also employed by a government that people assume is responsiblebecause they assume it is accountable. Countries are destroyed and private corporations are given contracts to re-build them. The cost of oil triples. Health care sky-rockets. The free press is just another business interested in profits. And the pockets of one percent or so of the population are lined with yet more gold.

Sometimes, I look back at myself when I was fourteen-1984. It was one of the most formative years of my life. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: “Those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.”

5 comments

Very interesting Peter. Those were scary years for sure, quickly followed by the relative bliss of the Clinton years and then back into the depths of political depravity via the Bush dynasty. Nice take.

Thanks for the comments Sarah. Yeah, they were crazy and it’s time people spoke honestly about what was going on then. The Clinton years were nice (despite how they ended) and then, once again, we went through eight years of total inanity (and that’s putting it mildly).

Peter: I find it sad that, “The more traditional institutions were less accommodating, and as I seemed hell-bent on crashing and burning, most of the folks I knew from church or school just stood back and watched.” Brennan Manning in one of his books points out that too often the more established; more traditional church communities are actually pretty frightened out of their minds about “real” sinners in their midst. Perhaps you were not ostracized, but did anyone make any effort to reach out to you?

People are fond of always pointing out how Jesus told individuals like the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. What they gloss over and explain away was his defense of her. It was important for her to know how much he cared about her before she could receive that final admonition. Brennan also made a remark that I find the most hopeful and encouraging, “The Lord loves us as we are; not as we should be because no one is ever as they should be.”

It seems so many are so afraid of giving any kind of tacit approval to the sins of others — sins that remind them of their own faults — that they avoid the courage required to show God’s Love (Unconditional Love) to the wounded of our society. We find healing because we finally find His acceptance of us as we are.

That’s quite an experience you’ve shared Peter. I imagine I’ve done simmilar things myself and perhaps without the shield of youthful indiscrestion to fall back on. As you know my family was quite dysfunctional and as a result I bumbled my way through growing up (some might say I still haven’t gotten there). I’m shocked that making a corrolation between Reagan and Ceasar actually brought the FBI to your door though. I’d have needed to change my drawers regardless of age.
Considering how much the country has changed now, I’m surprised you’d reiterate the story as memoir. Careful my friend the men in white coats with the black masks are out there and I’m certain everything we write on the web or say in public is monitored, regardless of how harmless be our intentions. Free speech is apparently open to interpretation and people have made compelling arguments on both sides of the issue…and freedom in general, is apparently also open to interpretation. I don’t know anyone who wishes harm to anyone else. In fact I don’t know anyone who would even consider doing some of the things which are suggested by the stories we read about or hear in the news of late, but there are real crimminals out there and they are dangerous. Sorry to say, but I’m guessing that might be why a 14 yr old was targeted: because it made for an easy and safe day’s work for some government employees who could be actually doing what we, the tax payers, expect of them. Instead not one, but two heavy hitters from the federal government play boogey man to a kid barely in his teens(to be fair, not all government employees are like this). As usual you capture the story and give a vivid account-one that should stip up some good conversation.

so as a result of your teen-age problems u’ve met the FBI…that’s coooool;im jealous,my teen-age issues didn’t involve FBI.this was intresting, and u were older than your age.u were fourteen and u were realy thinking!!! because your problems forced you to grow.